Gay groups are cheering the Obama administration's just-announced AIDS strategy.

The report, announced Tuesday in Washington, outlines a strategy for combating the AIDS epidemic by shifting resources to the disease's highest at-risk groups, which include gay and bisexual men and African-Americans.

“Such a plan is long overdue, and implementation can't happen fast enough,” Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, said in a release. “Each day without action means lives are changed forever, lives that are disproportionately gay, bisexual, transgender, people of color, and the financially disadvantaged.”

The administration aims to curb the number of new HIV infections by 25 percent over the next five years and increase by 20 percent the number of HIV-positive people receiving treatment within 3 months of their diagnosis, up from the current 65 percent.

Officials at the Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), the federal agency tasked with implementing the strategy, said they can accomplish these goals without increasing federal spending by focusing on groups most at risk for infection.

Sharon J. Lettman, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a group that seeks to eradicate racism and homophobia, welcomed the changes, saying that the Black community has been “devastated by HIV/AIDS.”

“African Americans represent approximately 12 percent of the population in the United States, and according to the CDC, account for nearly half (46 percent) of people living with HIV in the United States, as well as nearly half (45 percent) of new infections each year,” she said.

Some AIDS advocates criticized the plan for not doing much for those already coping with the disease.

The administration's three-pronged strategy also calls for combating stigma and discrimination associated with the disease.

AIDS activists have criticized previous administrations for not outlining a comprehensive strategy for combating the epidemic domestically. Work on the national AIDS strategy began at the start of the administration.